'Conor McGregor posted a rant about us - It's time to debunk him... again'

Irish Daily Mirror

8 hours ago

Disgraced fighter Conor McGregor has once again posted misinformation - this time targeting our publication.
Sadly, in this era of social media, where a person has 10.6m followers and an army of fans and bots alike, it has become necessary to further rebut misleading posts that he freely and without question uploads to social media.
McGregor, who was found liable by a civil jury for rape and recently lost his appeal of that decision, has taken to targeting this journalist and now our publication for reporting nothing but factual information - albeit information he does seem to like.
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On Tuesday he posted a long rant naming me, the Irish Daily Star, and levelled a series of unfounded accusations that he has now since deleted - as he has every other post directed at us. But not before they were read by his millions of followers.
On Tuesday we factually and accurately reported about a rape investigation which is now before the courts. It is the case that gardai believe the attack was random in nature - meaning the alleged injured party was not known to the alleged attacker beforehand. This was stated as fact and was not in any way intended to minimise the alleged incident - if anything it was to properly reflect the grim reality of it.
As is the law of the land - we cannot identify the alleged attacker - nor information that has not been heard in court. In general when a person is ultimately convicted of a rape offence - it may be the case then that they can then be identified - so long as a victim is not identified, or if a victim decides to waive their anonymity. McGregor, who has blocked me on social media platform 'X', nonetheless took it upon himself to repost screenshots of our story on this issue, in order to attack our reporting.
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Calling me 'an absolute disgrace' for merely informing the public about the incident in the first place, McGregor then went on to falsely state that I 'first ignored and then mocked the stabbing of a Garda on active duty in broad daylight.'
He further falsely claimed that I was 'acting' like I 'didn't know the details,' and that I was 'here again playing to the agenda of government elite in deceiving the public despite the dangers now faced by the people of Ireland.'
Normally these kinds of allegations are best left ignored. But McGregor, who claims he's running for the Irish presidency, enjoys a large platform that I believe should not go unchallenged. I resent and totally reject his allegation that I ignored or mocked a garda. I would never do so, nor would I mock or make light of any victim.
The UFC fighter is referring to a now deleted post by me on 'X' in which I reposted a statement he made about an incident that is now before the District Court. My intention behind this post was to state that at that point he had been 'radio silent' about the Court of Appeal decision upholding a High Court civil jury finding that he raped Nikita Hand - and that instead he was posting about this.
Noting in hindsight that his post was about an incident now before the courts, I decided it best to delete it. Sadly however, that was not the end of it, and a pile of accounts leapt on the opportunity to allude to some sort of conspiracy as to why the post was deleted. My post at no stage mocked or ignored what was a widely covered major news event - that was not only extensively reported by this publication - but virtually every other outlet in the land. Conor McGregor invites Donald Trump to Ireland and drops wild AI image
Once again, this is a matter now before the courts - which severely limits how publications such as ourselves can comment on such matters for the moment. We the media have to follow the law. But that is clearly something McGregor doesn't seem to understand. Or perhaps, he doesn't care.
Finally, he made further misleading claims that our publication, the Irish Daily Star, is a 'sponsored rag of government,' alluding to a €100,000 payment by the government which he claims was to aid us in propagating 'the public full of misdirection and diversion.'He also called this 'criminal behaviour.'
Once again, there is no conspiracy here. I certainly haven't seen a cent of government money personally, and no one controls our editorial direction or that of any of the free press here in Ireland. McGregor is referring to a €100,000 payment given to our company 'Reach PLC' as part of the 'Global Ireland Media Challenge Fund.'
The Department of Foreign Affairs backed fund is awarded to media outlets in order to help fund international coverage that would otherwise be impossible in this challenging time for all media. The funding is not, and never has been used to control our editorial direction - which has often challenged and been critical of the government of the day.
The fund has only ever been used to enhance our international reporting - for example allowing our reporters to cover our brave Irish soldiers helping keep the peace between Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights. It was further utilised to send us to Lebanon to cover the important work being done by Irish peacekeepers there and the demand for justice for the murdered soldier - Private Sean Rooney.
It is also utilised and open to any media outlet to avail of - and does not in any way impact or get used for our domestic coverage. We would absolutely abhor and never sign up to being used by the government to spread any agenda.
These are words that normally should go without saying. But sadly, this is no longer the case in a world of unchecked social media - where any thick with a blue tick can have such a large platform.
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